Any laptop can break, but some manufacturers have a better track record than others. A 2012 study by SquareTrade, that looked at failure rates over the course of three years, found that Asus' electronics broke the least often (followed very closely by Toshiba) and HP's broke the most often. In fact, with HP, you had more than a one in four chance of getting a broken laptop in those three years. That may seem high, but even the best couldn't achieve a failure rate below 15%. Let's take a look at the rankings, from best to worst:

​

Asus: 15.6%

Toshiba: 15.7%

Sony: 16.8%

Apple: 17.4%

Dell: 18.3%

Lenovo: 21.5%

Acer: 23.3%

Gateway: 23.5%

HP: 25.6%

The hands-down winner in this category shouldn't come as a surprise, seeing as they love to tell everyone. According to a 2012 study conducted by Consumer Reports, Apple received a much higher rating than every other manufacturer surveyed. Acer (and their acquired company Gateway) scored the worst. Here's the breakdown, scored out of 100 from best to worst:

P​

Apple: 86

Lenovo: 63

Asus: 62

Dell: 60

Toshiba: 59

HP: 58

Acer/Gateway: 51

Sony: No Score Available

When combining tech support ratings with failure rates, who comes out on top? Apple comes out with the highest average thanks to their very high support rating. For those who don't want to buy Apple, Asus claims the next highest score. Unfortunately we don't have a number for Sony, so don't necessarily count them out here. As we'll discuss in the rest of this post, the numbers aren't everything.

Rock Lobster

I can't help but feel (opinion) that Apple gets such a high mark for customer service because they have a dedicated physical store you can bring your equipment to for service. You pay a premium for their equipment, though you do get that personal service if needed.
If Dell/Lenovo/Asus had their own store, I wonder if their support marks would be higher.

That being said, I've always had good luck with Dell laptops. Having worked in IT for many years, and having to help various friends/family with computer issues, I've noticed a recurring theme. It seems that when you get that $299 "black Friday" special laptop, you think it's a great deal. Then in 6 months it's broken/slow. Sorry, but you can't buy the bottom of the barrel PC and expect it to last 5+ years. This applies to my beloved Dells as well.

Active Member

Yeah, I won't buy a laptop from, say, Walmart because they use cheaper components to achieve that lower price. Instead, I'm a fan of picking up a nice factory refurb (from Newegg or Woot) that turns a $700 laptop into a $500. I get what I need/want AND can afford two of them and still be cheaper than one Apple laptop. Only time I've EVER had a problem with a laptop was when someone (a kid) spilled a soda all over it. I'm at #5 in six years. My wife is on her 2nd in that same time.

Member

I have had the worst luck with Dell, both Walmart and custom from Dell laptops. I have had GREAT luck with Toshibas, both purchased at Best Buy, Office Max or ordered from New Egg. Currently have 2 Toshibas on DJ only use, only hooked to net for updates to programing, all music is imported by disc or thumb drive, otherwise they are never hooked to the NET. I also have two for home use.

I am on my 3rd Dell at work in 5 years, two laptops and one desk top. The laptops never left the office and were ordered by the John Deere dealership from Dell direct.

Gear and Equipment Moderator

Anyone ever thought about ordering a PC built to your specs and not to some non-standardized OTC PC (basically what the manufacturer/supplier THINKS you want/need)? I ordered both my GenX Laptops in 2004 and they're still going strong today for everything I demand of them. They were both considered "gaming laptops" in their day and these identical models cost me over $3K at the time. My specs were (and remember this was in 2004) 2.4Ghz dual-core intel processors, 4Gb ram, 1Gb Nvidia card, DVD/CD writer and 4 USB ports, 1 Firewire ports with No OS (because I purchased my own Windows XP Pro SP 2 OS). One failure to date - lost a 20Gb internal HD on my primary system in 2009 and replaced it with the smallest I could buy at Office Depot; a 250Gb HD then cloned it from my backup system. They NEVER touch the internet, have no anti-virus sw and only run Adobe Reader V9, Virtual DJ V7.4.1 Pro, FolderSync, MP3Gain, RealTech HD Audio and Cyberlink's PowerDVD. Knock on wood ..... they'll keep on running despite the fact I've already got their two replacements by ASUS ready to go which both have even more firepower.And BTW.....the Asus replacements were a mere $1349 each ....... I guess they used the excess I paid in 2004 to cover R&D costs

My best advice is to always overbuy what you actually need because the technology changes so fast that buying a minimum requirement system will be out of date in 4 to 6 months.

Gear and Equipment Moderator

Yeah that may be true but remember ..... I bought those in 2004 and they both still run perfectly and take anything I can throw at them ..... Music, Karaoke, Video, Slideshows, Digigames, all the sound effects, video effects, transitions etc ...... the whole ball of wax and they're nearly 10 years old.

Well-Known Member

New Member

I have 4 Asus Laptops and love them. 1-i7 and 3-i5's and I upgraded the RAM to the max on all of them. The only issue I have is I have to physically turn "off" the wifi other wise I will get a popping noise which sounds like a small firecracker. You can't hear it when the music is playing and it's turned up, but it is definitely noticeable when the music is off. I've not tried to connect to the available wifi to see if that makes it stop. A lot of times there isn't one to connect to anyway. I would prefer to be able to down load music if I don't have it, but that isn't very often anyway. The folks at the DJ store I shop at tell me they recommend not being connected to the internet while at a show and that's the advice I've been following.

I agree. My strategy is to wait a little so that I'm not paying a premium on something new. For instance, I will be building a PC soon that will handle video editing. Instead of buying the newest chipset, I will buy the 2nd newest, which will have had a nice price drop, but still be ahead of my needs. This will allow me to more easily afford high quality and high end pieces, rather than having to cheap out on anything and create a bottleneck.

Gear and Equipment Moderator

Owning a big Dell XPS desktop that I purchased strictly for video editing, I highly recommend loading as much memory as it'll take and get the highest powered video card available. My home desktop has 16Gb of RAM ands a 3Gb video card. It cost me up front but I've yet to have a complaint.

Active Member

Owning a big Dell XPS desktop that I purchased strictly for video editing, I highly recommend loading as much memory as it'll take and get the highest powered video card available. My home desktop has 16Gb of RAM ands a 3Gb video card. It cost me up front but I've yet to have a complaint.

For the machines I already have the issue is the CPU. The laptop I'm on, for instance, is a 2.7 ghtz (dual core AMD) with 16GB RAM and a nice video card. Resource manager shows the CPU immediately hits 100% once I start playing the HD footage in my editor.

New Member

Anyone ever thought about ordering a PC built to your specs and not to some non-standardized OTC PC (basically what the manufacturer/supplier THINKS you want/need)? I ordered both my GenX Laptops in 2004 and they're still going strong today for everything I demand of them. They were both considered "gaming laptops" in their day and these identical models cost me over $3K at the time. My specs were (and remember this was in 2004) 2.4Ghz dual-core intel processors, 4Gb ram, 1Gb Nvidia card, DVD/CD writer and 4 USB ports, 1 Firewire ports with No OS (because I purchased my own Windows XP Pro SP 2 OS). One failure to date - lost a 20Gb internal HD on my primary system in 2009 and replaced it with the smallest I could buy at Office Depot; a 250Gb HD then cloned it from my backup system. They NEVER touch the internet, have no anti-virus sw and only run Adobe Reader V9, Virtual DJ V7.4.1 Pro, FolderSync, MP3Gain, RealTech HD Audio and Cyberlink's PowerDVD. Knock on wood ..... they'll keep on running despite the fact I've already got their two replacements by ASUS ready to go which both have even more firepower.And BTW.....the Asus replacements were a mere $1349 each ....... I guess they used the excess I paid in 2004 to cover R&D costs

My best advice is to always overbuy what you actually need because the technology changes so fast that buying a minimum requirement system will be out of date in 4 to 6 months.

Nicky, just to let you know I still work with my Fujitsu laptops made in Japan running Win XP. They were more money than Apple but I never had problems with them, while my friends upgraded 2 times already with apple cool aid.[h=1]Fujitsu LifeBook S7110 is my number. Most DJs have no idea what they are talking about when comes to laptops.[/h]

Mobile Beat Moderator

Thank you Steve for this post. In the last 5 years I bought an HP, Sony, 2 Macbook pros, 1 Macbook, 3 dell inspiron's. The Hp crapped out after 2 and a half years hardly used in the 2nd year mother board went. The Sony bought in June 2011 already went bad. The screen is nearly black and after taking it to 2 shops they said the mother board is dead. Yeah. Not one of the computers I bought was under $750 so these are not Walmart specials. Bought at the companies site or BB. So far the MacBook Pro's have been the best.

I just bought my daughter a Toshiba on Sunday which at 1st she didn't like cuz it was too manly She wanted a white or Pink Sony but after using it for a day she's starting to like it. I like the fact that when I went to pick it up sat night it was not hot, like Gateways or the HP was. Time will tell.